Making sure Iraq is like Vietnam
The current ROEs for Baghdad -- including Sadr City, home of the Mahdi Army
-- have seven incremental steps that must be satisfied before our troops can
take the gloves off and engage the enemy with appropriate violence of
action.
(1) You must feel a direct threat to you or your team.
(2) You must clearly see a threat.
(3) That threat must be identified.
(4) The team leader must concur that there is an identified threat.
(5) The team leader must feel that the situation is one of life or death.
(6) There must be minimal or no collateral risk.
(7) Only then can the team leader clear the engagement.
This ties the hands of our troops, ensuring deaths, and just like a withdrawal timeline, gives the murders fighting against us the upper hand.
I hope the people responsible for these ROEs are made to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not with troops already there, but as a new unit made up of only those that thought up, okayed and foisted this upon our troops. No need to endanger smart troops with this group of PC morons.
ht to Blonde Sagacity
